It pains me to say I just got off the phone having paid the £40. I can't spare the time to deal with it right now, I'm moving house and the our baby's due next month.

Blimey, did these people tell the court that they don't legally have to chase up the acknowledgement letter. They can appeal I suppose, hoe does that work?

If your job and license are on the line, you need proper legal assistance.

It sounds like you sent the forms off in good faith, that is all you are required by law to do. Why are you hoping for an out of court settlement, when you are not guilty of anything? If you got confused over the dates, it shouldn't matter. You must have sent the form off as soon as you sold the car, like most of us do. We don't have any need to keep the sodding forms, but the DVLA assumes we are all guilty until proven innocent. Once they have handed a case off to their enforcement offices they won't easily give up harassing you without it going to court it seems.

So did you get the original letters asking for £40 and so on? Did the letter from the DVLA state is was a 'Late Licensing Penalty'? If so, you cannot get points for it, it's a civil case not a criminal case. Relax. Did they get debt collectors onto you too? I'm interested in what's happened to other as it might happen to me next... The worst you could get I believe is a CCJ, and you won't get that if you simply state the facts... You posted it, they lost it. They brought the case to court so the onus is on them to prove you didn't send the form in. Unless you told them you didn't send it to them, they have no evidence at all. You win.

Have you looked at my letter I sent the DVLA?

I don't think it's strange at all. It was probably done on purpose to catch you out. It's a money making scheme, a bit like 'Phishing'. Just try to work out how to prove to the court that they (the court) must have sent the original court summons to the wrong address first. I assume the court must realise this as they've set this new date? But you never know.

So how did the DVLA find your new address? I guess you must have updated them yourself at some point? Anyway, I hope you can go back and refute the original claim and get the £250 'fine' cancelled. You should get proof that you moved at a particular date, and therefore the court summons didn't arrive the first time. Then you can stick it to them in court. Look at the letter I have just sent to them for a quick overview of the info I gleaned from this site, it's in this forum. (I can't post a link to it) Don't forget to keep a record of your costs for this, and issue a counterclaim if poss.

Thanks Tony and Sam. I sent my response off today, let's see where this ends up...

Hiya, so this went to court a while ago and she missed the date? Is that right? And yet now they've gone back to court again? I'm in the early stages of a similar thing, if you look though the various threads on here you'll get some idea what other people have had to do to sort this out. If you aren't 'guilty' of what the DVLA say you did, you should stand up against them for sure. Can you give more details about the letters you were sent back in Feb? Cheers.

I expect they look out for stuff like this just to chase a 'penalty' payment and make some dosh. I sent in my V5C/3 when I sold my car which they must have lost or ignored, so I expect that when the new owners registered it someone at the DVLA saw they hadn't officially received my form and started the ball rolling with proceedings against me.

Should I send this to the DVLA now or wait? My wife's heavily pregnant and we are about to move house so I want to nip this in the bud now. Dear Sir/Madam, regarding your letter dated xxx of April. I have fulfilled my only obligation by returning the V5C/3 slip via First Class post to the DVLA on or around the xxx of January. I’ve kept a photo of the front of the slip for my own records, showing the car was sold on the 11/01/11 to xxx, VAT number xxx. Please update your records to show this. I am not required by law to inform you if a letter of acknowledgement didn’t arrive. The fact that this ‘reminder’ to contact you after 4 weeks is apparently written on the back of the very document that has to be posted back to you, proves how poorly thought out the system is. You cannot prove I didn’t send the V5C/3 and as such I will not accept any form of ‘penalty’ from yourselves. The form was either lost by the Royal Mail or the DVLA. I’m well aware of the tactics you might use to further threaten me, but I know my legal rights and the law, including the Interpretations Act - once a letter is posted it is deemed served unless returned by the Royal Mail. Also, I'm keeping records of the time I've spent dealing with this, and if you continue this line of harassment, I will be seeking costs from you as well as any loss of income, I am self employed and cannot afford this time wasted. What do you folks think? Cheers.

Stick by your guns. It seems after a couple of adjournments they will go away. Have you already sent them a letter alluding to the fact that you know you'll win in court, because they cannot prove you didn't send the paper work in? Do you have a defense in case it gets that far?